Marie was sure she'd never return. Bethany would never make her crazy. If heritage destroyed one's mind, she wanted nothing of it. Yet, she dozed in her old bed, and had taken possession of the damned land of her blood. Perverse fate had rendered judgment. She refused to lie to herself about the circumstances. Again, the promise to escape crossed her lips to cut the shift of figures.

Whispers answered her oath. Her mother had answered those voices, muttered to them. Murmurs turned into a roar, and she cursed Bethany, her family. No one, even Tim, saw the depths of her mother's insanity. To an audience she would speak, each word drew the mind deeper. Days would pass, where she would eat little, and Marie would remind her to take care of herself. Bursts of laughter or tears would peel out with no warning. A child accepts strangeness of a beloved parent, but with age, one sees the oddness. Marie had to manage her mother, the condition. Some days the veil was thin, voices crawled out of slack lips, and she would cry or beg for Bethany's return. Once, something had seized her, and Marie thought death would come. Bethany had soiled herself. Even now, she could smell the fetid stink, and the warmth of the urine. Love had been strong enough to withstand the cage of madness.

Away from Eleanor and Sabbath Branch, the voices quieted and the shadows stilled. Sometimes, around violent death the darkness would sway to the notes of a silent song. Below the tumult of the city, among the corpses, a word would float upon the wind. Marie would dismiss these aberrations, thought for a moment, they would ensnare her. Death had a smell, a taste, which always reminded her of Eleanor, of home. Does one ever escape, she wondered, as the night swallowed her up. This land was in her blood, no matter how far life cast her.

Shadows took her down. A dark sea of obsidian-black lapped at the shore of bone white stones. Rocks vanished. Marie gasped, pulled herself up. She turned back to see the waters recede into the bog. Low, wet rot clogged her nose, and she coughed out fetid air. The chorus of frogs bumped over the detritus of Hemlock Hurst. Shafts of light pierced the canopy from the monotonous lightning. Traces of fireflies wrote nonsensical script in the night, rabbling madness. Low, icy ground fog pricked exposed skin, but a sensuous heat waited just above. Funeral spices leaped upon the guts, gone quick as it was felt. Deep in the woods of Ashless Hollow, Marie was consigned.

The world pressed against her, as she stood. Slow, relentless life seeped into the woods, and among the trees shapes formed. Marie strained her eyes and listened. Fresh spilled engine coolant stung the nose, but it fled into the decay. A shred of a newspaper clung to her, which bore her name. It held the last story she'd penned at the newspaper. Gunfire was distant. Bethany's endless mutter hid among the call of whippoorwills. Ever reliable, Tim confessed his love, which struck her, even now, with an odd terror.

Faintness gripped her, and dark streams of blood ran from her. They slithered through the muck, as the darkness stilled. The rasp of the whispers silenced. All of Ashless Hollow watched the pool of filthy water. Marie caught the smell of gingerbread, which always reminded her of Bethany. Out of the rancid muck, a shadow struggled up from the uneasy earth. The streams slithered into the figure, fed its withered form. It rose to regard her.

Marie tried to pull her gaze away. Shadows gripped her face to force it to watch, claws pulled eyes wide. A flash of fireflies doused the figure's face in sickly light. It turned. Bethany's face melted into a disquieted corpse. The homespun dress was stained a hue of black only found in low lands, wet and full of rot. It disintegrated, fabric worn thin in places. Each of her measured steps brought the miasma of putrefied vegetation closer. Over Marie's body the velvet shadows restrained her, so she would bear witness to the will of this accursed land.

Bethany stopped a few yards away. She beheld her daughter, and let Marie see her. They were similar in visage, though Bethany's eyes lacked the flecks of gold. The differences were deeper, more primal and spiritual. Ancestral knowledge burdened the mother, lived in the exhausted gaze, and was seared into every line of her face. Awful was the insight that was within those eyes.

Black blood ran from the tattered dress to spread across the earth like postulant veins. The darkness crept over Bethany's skin. Whisper formed oaths and curses. The shadow gripped her face, claws dug into her. In the grip of the forest's will, the flesh was stripped way in a gory flourish. Marie no longer gazed into her mother's eyes, but she stared in her own lush green flecked with gold. Truth unveiled; Ashless Hollow held a mirror up to her heart.

A scream peeled out of Marie. The grip on her released. Words slashed at her back as she retreated. This revelation she cursed, and swore to never be Bethany. Mud sucked at her feet, shadows brushed against exposed hot skin, whispers caressed her ears, and Ashless Hollow contemplated her retreat. A tendril of darkness gripped her ankle.

The mud splashed up, as the earth caught her. Ashless Hollow turned Marie who fought to free herself. Unveiled to her was a truth, and it meant to be seen. She tore at it to be freed.

"INKY," Tim pounded on the door, "are you okay?" He looked towards the sun, but it had passed the rim of Lear Mountain.

Marie shot out of the bed, thin sheet tangled about her legs. She tore at the fabric. Another scream rose to her lips, yet was caught, when Tim knocked again. Sweat stuck clothes to her body, and dried mud lingered between fingers and toes. The rancid stink of the bog bled into the tang of soured clothes. Again, he called for her, nervous tone only grew. Upon her tongue, she still tasted the musk of Ashless Hollow.